Introduction
In the age of the internet and fast content, the attention spans of internet users are diminishing like never before. There is an explosion of online content and marketing strategies due to the level of knowledge humanity has admitted over the centuries. Services are now available to anyone at their fingertips. Marketing, though it has become more research-oriented, time-tested, and proven over the years, is not stagnant. Indeed, to be successful in marketing, you need to be highly adaptive. In recent times, psychology has been integrated into the marketing strategies of several innovative companies. The psychology of customers is continuously being researched and tested through advertising. We can safely say that marketing and psychology will form a bond like no other in the age of digital marketing. In this article, let us explore the importance of psychology in marketing.
To be a successful marketer, you must stand in the shoes of your customers. You must understand their pain points, inner thoughts, and decision-making process. If you don't know why a customer will buy your product, then your marketing efforts will go down the drain. This is why marketing will be easier and more natural for you if you understand people. Even if you are not great at understanding people, learning psychology can help you become a great marketer.
Important Principles of Psychology You Should Use
1. Priming
Learning is a curious process in humans. You intake information, and to help you remember this important information, you connect the new one to another old memory or piece of information. For example, it is easier for you to remember a list of kitchen ingredients if you know what you are going to make with them. The end result will help you remember every minor ingredient if you are the one cooking. However, if you are not a cook and do not know the recipe, then it is harder for you to remember even half a dozen ingredients. The pattern here is that people associate everything with their previous experiences and memories. This creates patterns, habits, and behaviours.
This is exactly the process that today's marketers follow. Priming is the process of familiarising your customers with your brand through something they already know and deeply associate with. If you are a web designer, you can use priming to help your visitors remember a few key details about your brand. Simple and seemingly unimportant details like a website's background, patterns, text, and photographs can prime your visitors. This will be a crucial factor in deciding whether or not to buy your product (Source: Wikipedia).
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2. Reciprocity
Reciprocity has been a marketing tactic since time immemorial. If someone does a favour for you, you want to return that favour to them in some other form. This is the basis of reciprocity. Hotel waiters use this tactic with their customers. When they bring a mint with the bill to your table, you naturally want to tip them more. Ecommerce websites nowadays use the same tactic, and you can too. Giving something of value for free to your customers will make them want to give something in return.
Giving them a free ebook if your target market is Abid traders or giving them a free sample or discount coupon are all examples of reciprocity. This is also the basis for strong social media content marketing. By providing extraordinary value through social media posts, brands can attract potential customers to their websites and make sales due to the concept of reciprocity. In all these cases, people want to give back through their time, efforts, or money, which works in favour of your brand (Source: Wikipedia).
3. Social proof
You might already be aware of this marketing concept. Social proof is a concept that assumes that people will adopt the mindsets and ideas of a group of people they trust or have something in common with. For example, a potential customer for an e-commerce store will always trust the reviews that have already been posted by other users over the testimonials on the site or the stories of the website owners. People trust others who fall into their own categories. In the example of an e-commerce store, customers listen to other customers rather than to the shop owner or employees.
Marketers can implement this concept to genuinely boost their sales. If you implement a review section for your product and let people review it, it will boost your sales. If you own a blog, integrating social media sites' buttons, view counts, comment sections, and share counts will boost your social proof. Granted, it will be a challenge to get the first comment, share, or "like" for your product or service. However, once the process has started, it will boost your authenticity and social reputation.
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4. Decoy Effect
This is a classic sales strategy used by marketers to promote the sale of a high-cost item in comparison with a low-priced product or service. If you are offering your product or service in two different price ranges, then adding a third product or service as a decoy will boost the sales of your highest-priced product (Source: Wikipedia).
The classic example of coffee cups is perfect for understanding this strategy. Suppose There are only two options: small and large coffee cups, priced at $3.50 and $6, respectively. Here, customers buy according to their needs. However, if you add a third option with strategic pricing, then the buying behaviour changes. In this case, if you add a medium-sized coffee cup priced at $5.50, the demand for large coffee cups goes up. The reason is that the newly added decoy will give the perception of a higher value for the large coffee cup. This makes large cups better, but with better returns. To make this strategy work, marketers must reduce the pricing difference between the two expensive options more than that of the least expensive option. This simple concept will boost the sales of your high-end product if you make your visitor believe that it is of higher value than the decoy.
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5. Scarcity
When your product is scarce, people's perception changes and they believe that the demand for your product is high. As a result, they think that they can't go wrong with their choice in buying your product. The more rare an opportunity, content, product, or discount, the more valuable it will become. E-commerce stores implement this strategy regularly. E-commerce giants like Amazon offer heavy discounts during peak sales and festival seasons. The heavy discounts are often compensated by a large number of sales. However, the discounts and the fast-moving aspects of the products will create a sense of scarcity. When coupled with urgency, this can boost sales like no other. For example, offering a fast-moving product at 50% of its original price and putting up an opportunity window of just 24 hours will appeal to both the scarcity and urgency mindsets in your customers.
However, you must also be careful how you word your offer. If you want people to believe you, you must create a believable concept of scarcity. If you had a large number of products but now have only a handful left, that will boost your sales. On the other hand, if you give the perception that there were only a few products in total in the first place, this strategy will not be as effective (Source: Wikipedia).
6. Anchoring
People will decide to buy a product based on the patterns of buying they have become used to over the years. For example, if they have been buying jeans for $50 over the years in their favourite store, then buying the same jeans at a 30% discount will be exciting for them. However, the same offer will not be impressive to someone who is used to buying jeans for $20 at a different shop. Giving your customers the perception of a high cost and later giving them a wow factor with a reduced price will help you boost sales. This perception boosts the value of your products and reduces pricing concerns among your customers.
If you look at any popular e-commerce store or offline store, you will notice the implementation of this concept. In every product listing, there will be an original price and a discounted price. The original price is shown in a strikeout pattern to familiarise the visitor with a higher value for the product. These prices will serve as an anchor against which customers can compare the discounted price. This comparison gives them the perception of a higher value for money and thus affects their decision-making process. As a result, the sales process will have another advantage for marketers (Source: Wikipedia).
7. Clustering
Your customers have only limited memory space to store short-term memories. According to research, they can remember on average only seven pieces of information at a time. To overcome these disadvantages, people use a tactic known as "clustering." Clustering is the process of organising a list of items according to their similarity. For example, if you have a grocery list to buy from a supermarket, you will cluster the names according to the categories, like fruits, vegetables, cleaning products, etc. This mental grouping allows you to revisit your grocery list in your memory and remember it while you shop through the supermarket's different areas. This is more effective than visiting random sections of the supermarket and trying to remember random items.
Consuming content works similarly. This is why you must understand and use clustering in your marketing. Cluster your content or information according to a relatable pattern. Using numbered lists and different headings and subheadings to group interrelated topics can help your visitors easily scan your page and retain critical information about your brand. In social media posts, follow a set pattern that organises information in clusters.
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8. Loss Aversion
People don't want to lose what they already have. They already have experienced the benefits of having a product or service and don't want to lose out on the comfort or ease it brings. This behaviour is called loss aversion. This is where the concept of freemium products and services gets interesting. You might have noticed numerous services offering free plans along with their premium plans. Typically, these free plans are available to their customers for a specific duration. If someone has used the product or service for that duration, they are very unlikely to lose the benefits of the service. This in turn helps them make an informed decision to buy premium services. Here, not wanting to lose the features after they have become familiar with the benefits is the concept of loss aversion working in favour of the company (Source: Wikipedia).
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Next steps
If you are a marketing manager interested in consumer behaviour and psychology, pursuing a formal educational qualification in your field will boost your knowledge and opportunities. SNATIKA offers prestigious UK academic qualifications to senior management professionals. A Masters degree in Strategic Marketing or a Professional Diploma in Psychology can open you up to fresh ideas and lead you to higher academic prestige. This in turn will boost your career growth potential globally. Moreover, SNATIKA's programs are authentic, high-quality, online, flexible, and cost-effective. Visit SNATIKA to learn more about these prestigious programs.
Conclusion
Marketing is an ever-advancing industry. Knowing how to play the marketing game is highly important for marketing success. These eight consumer psychology concepts are used by businesses of all sizes in marketing to their audiences. You can use priming to create familiarity with your brand. Offering something for free to your customers will make them want to reciprocate. This can end with them buying your products. Having strong social proof across social media platforms will build trust among your customers. Some brands use a third decoy option to boost the sales of their expensive options. If you do it right, creating the perception of scarcity will increase demand for your product.
As people's short-term memories are limited, clustering your brand information will help them remember key details about your brand. Finally, nobody wants to lose what they already have. This concept is used by brands that offer "freemium" products and services. Those who use your service for free for a limited time will understand its benefits and don't want to miss out on the comfort of your service. This will indirectly boost your sales, sign-ups, or subscriptions. What psychological concepts are you using?
Citations
Mineo, Ginny. “Marketing Psychology: 10 Revealing Principles of Human Behavior.” Marketing Psychology: 10 Revealing Principles of Human Behavior, 6 Nov. 2015, blog.hubspot.com/marketing/psychology-marketers-revealing-principles-human-behavior.